Idiot
by Siobhan Daley
Summary: Draco and his friend have a squabble over some of his behavior.


"I swear to God, Draco, if Buckbeak hadn't slashed your arm, I'd hex you into next week!" Draco was in the hospital wing getting his arm bandaged up after an ill-fated interaction with a hippogriff, and his best friend wasn't very pleased with him.

"Like you did last year?" he grumbled, remembering all too well the horrifically unpleasant combination of the bat-bogey hex and the curse of the bogies Melody had cast on him in second year during one of their arguments.

"Worse than that," she promised him. "You were just acting like a jerk then. Honestly, Draco, you put yourself in danger for no good reason! You could have lost your arm!"

"If Potter could ride that bloody chicken, then I could too!" he protested.

Melody smacked Draco on the head with her rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet. "Get over yourself, Draco! You can't just walk up to a hippogriff!"

"Ow! You're making it sound like I'm the bad guy here."

"Buckbeak felt threatened by you, Draco! If you wanted to go up to him, you should have done it the way Hagrid told you to!"

"What do you want from me, Mel?"

"What do I want from you?" she scoffed, "How is that even a question to you? I want you to get over your stupid superiority complex! You don't always have to one-up everyone else around you!"

"Says the one who excels at everything."

"You're completely missing the point!" Melody shouted, quickly losing her composure, "Forget it. I'm done!" She got up and stormed out of the hospital wing with her fiery hair flaring dramatically, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Fine! Go play with your Gryffindor buddies! See if I care!" he yelled after her, getting no response other than the echoes of his own voice. He crossed his arms in a huff, quickly uncrossing them when he painfully remembered his injury. "What's with her? She's always on _their_ side. She should be saying 'Don't worry, Draco, you'll be fine! They'll kill that stupid hippogriff for sure!' or something! We're in the same house, for crying out loud! She should side with me!" _So why does she always support the Gryffindors?_

For hours, he sat there in his hospital bed, waiting for Melody to come back. But no matter how long he waited, she didn't show up. _Maybe Mel's right_ , he started thinking after the lonliness began to set in, _I was being really stupid earlier, just because I wanted to outdo Potter._ He thought back to the actual incident, remembering how Melody tried to get him to come back to the group. At the time, he'd shrugged her off and not paid her any mind. _I must've looked like such an ass. I just wanted to do something amazing like Potter and Mel can do..._ His pathetic whimpering, "It's killed me! It's killed me!" played back in his head over and over, somehow making the gashes in his arm sting a bit more. _Yeah, some tough guy I am. I can't even walk up to a bloody chicken._

* * *

On the other side of the school grounds by the lake, Melody sat, cradled in the branches of an old tree. She had a journal open against her knees and was scribbling in it furiously with one of her quills, clearly angry, but about what was anyone's guess. "That jerk!" She grumbled to herself, "He scares me half to death, thinking he's gonna get killed by a hippogriff, and he has the gall to act like _I'm_ the one in the wrong! He acts like he's a bloody prince!"

"You know, people are going to think you're crazy if you keep talking to yourself like that."

"What do you want, Draco?" she muttered, still upset with him.

"Well, to start, could you help me climb the tree? I can't get up there with my arm in a sling."

"No."

"Then could you come down? We're going to have to head back to the common room soon anyway."

After a few moments she mumbled, "Fine," and climbed down from her perch. "So what do you want?"

Draco sucked in a deep breath and prepared to do something he'd never done before. "I'm and idiot and a jerk and I was being stupid earlier and I'm sorry!" He said it all in one breath, and to his surprise, apologizing didn't actually hurt at all.

Melody's face was priceless though. Her green eyes were wide in genuine shock, and she was looking at Draco like a giant pink mushroom had just popped out of his head. "You've never apologized to me before," she remarked in disbelief, "Who are you, and what have you done with Draco Malfoy?"

"Look, you were right earlier, okay? I'm an idiot. Can we go inside now? It'll be dark soon."

For some reason, the pair suddenly started laughing like someone had just told them the funniest joke in the world. There was no real reason behind it. It just happened. When Draco was finally winding down, he looked at his friend, only to see one of the most picturesque things he'd ever seen.

Melody was still smiling and laughing, but the rest of the picture was different. The grey clouds had parted, letting the last rays of golden sunlight shine over everything, turning the lake behind Melody into molten gold. Though they'd been out when the sun was setting before, he's never noticed how her appearance changed in the different light. Her pale skin took on a light golden tone, her coppery hair turned into gleaming bronze, and all of her just seemed to glow like she was a fairy. It was like a scene from a fairytale, in his eyes. The perfect ending to their dispute.

 _Wow,_ he thought, _She's so pretty._ "Let's go, Mel. We need to get back before curfew. Don't want to get in trouble, do we?"

"Like you haven't gotten in trouble for that before," she teased as she started walking.

"Yeah, that's how I know."

The pair decided to race back to the castle, though Draco had to stop several times, both because of his arm and because he had a much lower endurance than Melody did. She ran around all the time, whereas he usually walked. He didn't mind, though. He liked watching her run. She always smiled when she was running, and to him, that smile was the greatest thing in the world.

* * *

Author's Note: Optional prompts used: 14 (the word "appearance"), 10 (the word "bronze"), 7 (the word "endurance")


End file.
